Will high petrol prices help the environment?

Emotional dependence 
Not everyone agrees with Schafer's analysis. Dr David Bonilla, senior research fellow in transport and 
energy economics at Oxford University, says: 'I think we are reaching peak oil, so I would say that 
prices will rise. There is rising demand from emerging economies like China, India and Brazil, it is clear 
that oil companies are having problems finding new oil - the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will reduce 
drilling in that part of the world - so I would say the price is going to go up.' 
Unfortunately Bonilla believes petrol prices still have a long way to rise before there is any serious fall 
in demand. A useful analogy, he says, is to compare the price of petrol per litre with that of bottled 
water: 'They are about the same, and this tells you that energy is too cheap. The price of energy 
would have to at least double... to have some impact on consumption.' 
However, Bonilla makes the intriguing point that emotions may play a much bigger role in reducing 
humanity's reliance on petrol than money alone. 'In the US, the government is talking about achieving 
energy independence, but this only started after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center,' 
he says. 'It is an emotional response to US dependence on Middle Eastern oil. There has been a 
political shift in the US and the role of emotion is very much under-estimated.' 
Greg Marsden, senior lecturer and leader of the Sustainable Transport Policy Group at the University of 
Leeds, believes that taxes based on the amount of CO2 emitted by different vehicles may be the most 
effective way to cut carbon emissions from transport. In 2003 the Company Car Tax Initiative levied 
higher taxes on the most polluting fleet cars. Within three years, emissions from fleet cars (owned by 
companies for their employees) had gone from being 5 per cent more polluting than the average 
privately-owned car to 5 per cent less. Road taxes for all cars have since been graduated to favour 
those with low emissions. 'If the Government doesn't want to clamp down on car ownership, 
incentives to make people buy the most efficient car could be quite effective,' says Marsden. 'Then 
again, people do tend to buy according to the fact that they love a Saab, or whatever it is.' 
It seems that Jeremy Clarkson will continue to rule for a while yet.

---

Bekzod Mirahmedov IELTS ZONE Online Writing and Speaking Course